An ear-wearable device is a device designed to be worn on or in a user's ear. Example types of ear-wearable devices include hearing aids, earphones, earbuds, telephone earpieces, and other types of devices designed to be worn on or in a user's ear.
In-ear wearable devices are ear-wearable devices designed to be worn at least partially in the user's ear canal. For example, Invisible-In-The-Canal (IIC) hearing aids, Completely-In-Canal (CIC) hearing aids, In-The-Canal (ITC) hearing aids, In-The-Ear (ITE) hearing aids, and the receiver portions of Receiver-In-Canal (RIC) hearing aids are designed to be worn in the user's ear canals. One advantage of in-ear wearable devices over other types of ear-wearable devices is that in-ear wearable devices may be less visible than other types of ear-wearable devices.
Because an in-ear wearable device is worn in a user's ear canal, the in-ear wearable device may need to have a vent that allows sound generated within the user's head (e.g., the user's voice, chewing sounds, etc.) to escape the user's ear canal instead of being trapped and resonating within the user's ear canal. The user may experience discomfort when such internally generated sounds resonate in the user's ear canal.